Search request processing

Abstract

A search engine receives a search request and determines a number of initial search results. The initial search results comprise at least one essential data piece and omit at least one non-essential data piece. Later on, a follow-up search request from the client is received which indicates at least one of the initial search results. The search engine computes at least one non-essential data piece for each initial search result indicated in the follow-up search request based on a number of dynamic computation rules and returns the computed at least one non-essential data piece for each initial search result to the client.

The invention claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for processing search requests, the method comprising:
 receiving, at a computing platform, a search request from a client, the search request indicating at least one search parameter;   determining, at the computing platform, a number of initial search results, wherein each of the initial search results comprise at least one respective essential data piece which corresponds to the at least one search parameter and omit at least one respective non-essential data piece associated with the at least one respective essential data piece;   returning, by the computing platform, at least a subset of the initial search results to the client, wherein each search result of the subset of the initial search results includes the at least one respective essential data piece and omits the at least one respective non-essential data piece;   receiving a follow-up search request from the client indicating at least one of the initial search results in the subset of the initial search results;   computing at least one non-essential data piece for each of the at least one initial search results, in the subset of the initial search results, indicated in the follow-up search request, based on a number of dynamic computation rules; and   returning the computed at least one non-essential data piece for each of the at least one initial search results, in the subset of the initial search results, to the client,   wherein one or more of:
 computing the at least non-essential data piece requires an amount of computation resources above a given threshold; and 
 the at least one non-essential data piece is omitted from the initial search results based on a current state of the computing platform. 
   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the current state of the computing platform comprises one or more of a number of search requests received within a given time interval, an amount of computation resources recently spent, a number or ratio of external data sources recently contacted, an amount of memory currently utilized, a current network load measure. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the initial search results returned to the client include an indication that the at least one non-essential data piece omitted in the initial search results are available in response to the follow-up search request. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein computing the at least one non-essential data piece for each initial search result indicated in the follow-up search request based on a number of dynamic computation rules at least partly occurs in a time after returning the initial search results to the client and before receiving the follow-up search request. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 providing, to the client, the number of dynamic computation rules to enable to client to compute the at least one dynamic data piece for each initial search result.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining the at least one non-essential data piece to be omitted from the initial search results based on previous follow-up search requests.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein computing the at least one dynamic data piece for each initial search result indicated in the follow-up search request is performed by a further computing platform outsourced from the search engine. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the follow-up search request includes an identifier per at least one of the initial search results in the subset of the initial search results, and the method further comprises:
 storing at least the returned subset of the initial search results in a memory;   retrieving, using the identifier, the initial search results indicated in the follow-up request from the memory;   computing the at least one dynamic data piece for each initial search result indicated in the follow-up search request based on the respective at least one essential data piece of the initial search results retrieved from the memory.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein essential data pieces are designated as mandatory to return to the client in response to the search request, and non-essential data piece pieces are designated as optional to return to the client in response to the search request. 
     
     
         10 . A computing system comprising a client device and a computing machine implementing a search engine, wherein the computing machine implementing the search engine is configured to perform the method according to  claim 1 . 
     
     
         11 . A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program code which, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to execute the method of  claim 1 . 
     
     
         12 . A computer comprising:
 at least one processor; and   a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon program instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform a set of operations comprising the method of  claim 1 .